A big city welcome - 'The Bill' style!

The weather in London was fantastic for our first week. This was not helpful when we were starting to think about job hunting, to the point where a quick trip to Amsterdam was on the cards. So next thing you know I was at an internet cafe not far from where we live searching for flights while Miranda was at home. The internet cafe, which is also a DVD store, is on a main street and has people walk in and out fairly frequently. About 5 minutes before my time was up, I heard the shop assistant say to the other shop assistant that someone had just come and taken all the money. I thought I had heard wrong because I hadn't heard anything or saw anybody and nor did the other 9 people on the computers (bearing in mind a robber would have had to walk past us to get to the counter which was only about 5-10 metres away from the computers). Anyway, what had happened was a guy had come into the shop, walked up to the counter, pointed a gun at the shop assistant, told her to be quiet and to give her all the money out of the till. He then quietly took the money and walked out of the shop. Pretty freaky!! Within about 5 minutes there were policeman everywhere and the shop was cordoned off ... just like on 'The Bill'. The policeman took the details from all of us that were on the computers but unfortunately none of us were any help. It is amazing how you can get such tunnel vision when you are sitting in front the computer.

It makes you think, would have have happened if one of us had noticed him. I think it was lucky none of us did. I'm not sure if the guy was caught.

So that was my big city welcome!

Amsterdam

A week or so after we landed in London we decided to take a cheap-ish mid-week flight to Amsterdam for 6 days to catch up with friends and re-visit some of our favourite places. Kindly, our old friend Peter said we could stay with him in his very central apartment.

Carl enjoying his dutch breakfast at Peter's gorgeous apartment.

Some of the old Heren 3 Volleyball team:
(left) -Sikko, Carl, Danny & Edzard. (right) - Yvo (also ex Heren 3) & Miriam out to dinner with us in Amsterdam.

Peter and Carl

We visited the Rijks Museum, ate all our favourite dutch snackfood - Krokets, bitterballen, stroopwafels and cheese, wandered around the canals and soaked up the atmosphere.



We met up with Scholes, Em and baby Jayden, and also had dinner with Carls old work mate from Wellington, Dave and his wife Lizzie, and saw Mandy again too!

On the Sunday we went to Scheveningen Beach close to The Hague with Peter and his friends. The European Beach Volleyball tour was on and we managed to watched the Mens & Womens finals. The mens final had two olympic indoor volleyball gold medalist playing so the level was exellent (and no, Carl's volleyball services we not required). Peter's friend, who we caught a ride to the beach with, his brother was in the final and they won which made it even better!! It was a great match.

Here's the 'Nestea girls' who were the entertainment between sets! It would have been rude to the sponsors if we hadn't paid attention!

On our last day we fitted in a (half) day trip to Delft - a quaint touristy town which boasts Delft pottery, climbed the old church tower for a great view and sat in the square eating pancakes, watching people go by.






Thanks Pete for your hospitality and .....we'll be back.

Thailand Photo Album

We thought we'd share some more great pics from our trip....

Who can spot the kiwi in Chiang Mai?

Some more great sunsets from Koh Tao...

The last supper.....our last meal in Thailand. YUM!

The Kiwi's hit London

After the last couple of days in Bangkok, which included more night markets, checking out Patpong - Bangkok's red light district, and getting suits made in 12hrs, we flew to London. Maria, Carl's sister, kindly picked us up from Heathrow and with partner Val, took us out for dinner to their local italian. Delicious! Certainly made a change from our diet for the last 3 weeks.



Maria and Val also have given us an offer we can't refuse. They have sold and are moving out of their Camberwell property in 3 weeks to their rental property (currently 2 flats) in East Dulwich. They had said we can rent the bottom flat for the next 5 or so months until they get the renovations underway, to make the 2 flats into 1 house, in January! So it's great deal for us and helps them out too. A win-win! Bring on London!

Miranda the Scuba Diver!

On the day before we left Koh Tao (a diving mecca and now I know why), I decided to do a 'Discover Scuba Diving' course for 2000Baht - about $80 NZD. Why haven't I ever done this before! I absolutely loved it!

It was only a half day course, which included a brief instruction on some basic skills, then a dive to about 6 meters. Our instructor, a thai guy named 'Off', was great and I found everything really easy - so all those years of underwater hockey paid off! After the short dive we got back on the boat, and sailed off to another spot where the other divers who were doing an Open Water course, had to do their training dives. Off said that I had picked it up really easily and if I wanted to, I could join them on the next dive, going to 14 meters. Did I want to?!!! ummmm YES! So for an extra 1000 baht ($40nzd), we dived for about 50 minutes. Apart from a few equalizing issues going down, it was great - it's a whole new world down there. Now I need to get my Open Water License to be able to dive anywhere else.....watch this space.

Photos to follow...didin't have the camera with me so I am relying on others from the boat trip to email them to me :)

Bug-eyed Miranda

Isn't it great getting bitten by a mosquito on the eyelid while sleeping.....!

Koh Tao

We left the busy island of Koh Samui after a couple of nights for the smaller and more chilled out island of Koh Tao. It's only about 21km around the island although the roads (if you can call them that) are mainly on one side. To get to the other side you need to take a taxi. Like Samui, the taxi's are utes but this time they are big 4 by 4 utes and are definitely needed.

We have been here for 3 nights so far and pretty much our time has been taken up relaxing on the beach, swimming, snorkeling, and generally just wandering around the island.......... oh and of course beach volleyball!

This is the sunset on the beach we are staying at. Not too shabby!

We hired a scooter and drove around the parts of the island that we could. It's a great way to get around. The roads that are sealed are filled with potholes so you have to always keep an eye out, not to mention in the back of our minds were the many tourists that we have seen with numerous bandages and grazes which we assume are from falling off motorbikes! As for the unsealed roads, we got about 500metres up one of them and worked out that there was no way our 50cc scooter was going to take us any further. It didn't have enough grunt to get up the hills let alone negotiate the crazy dirt tracks of roads. We saw a bit of the island though and Miranda only had to jump off the bike once due to the steep terrain. Funny!


The snorkeling here is amazing. The water is really clear and one spot we found had loads of amazing coral and fish. Carl saw a swordfish about a metre long (well maybe it was a little smaller) but it was big enough for him to move pretty dam quickly outta there!

This is us having a beer at the one of the many bars along the beach. This bar is a converted VW combi van. I know - life's hard!

Koh Samui

After a long travel day - ferry, bus, bus, ferry, we arrived to very busy very touristy Chaweng beach on Koh Samui island. We spent the first night having dinner by candlelight, the waves quietly lapping the shore 2 feet away from us. The next day we did a 'Crocodile, Elephant and Monkey show' at the local Safari park. We got picked up and watched as the croc trainers (?) do some freaky tricks such as putting their heads inside the croc's jaws! eeeek! The elephant show was ok and the monkey 'show' consisted of a monkey running up a coconut tree and knocking down a coconut...hmmm.

The 'taxi' ride back to our accommodation, which is a ute with 2 bench seats on the back, was a bit crazy. The driver was not a happy chappy and was driving like a mad man overtaking on blind corners which isn't that uncommon here though. At one point he shoved on the brakes pretty hard and another (bigger) ute rammed us from behind, about a metre from where we were sitting. Lucky we were holding on! The bumpers were damaged but that's about it.

Miranda managed to do some shopping that night in the tourist markets.

Koh Phi-Phi continued....

Koh Phi phi has continued to be gorgeous...no roads so no crazy cars or taxis just tourists on foot or thai locals on bicycle. Our resort is next door to a primary school, so at breakfast we watch mums & dad's deliver their little ones to school on their bikes, in immaculate uniform while we struggle to wake up, trying to wear as little as possible in the midmorning heat. Amazing that normal life goes on for the locals while we're in a completely different world...not that amazing really, but it's hard to imagine 'real life' after all this beach life we're having.

We walked over to the next bay over - Long Beach, the water was cooler here, more refreshing as it was deeper, and the bay itself, quieter as it was further away from the pier area. We made it back to 'The Sports Bar' which was showing the Tri-Nations Aussie vs All Blacks match in time for the haka....go AB's! Back on the sunset beach Carl found a volleyball net, more locals and tourists to play against. Another beautiful sunset, then a big thunder & lightening storm!

The next day we did a all day snorkelling tour of the area. This included Maya Bay where the movie 'The Beach' was filmed. We got there as our first stop, the fish in the bay were amazing but the beach was FULL of speed boats, launch boats and millions of people - quite awful really. The other stops were amazing though - the colour of the fish! and water was so clear! back home, more beach volleyball and another lightening storm. Exciting!

(Note: The water somehow takes away the bronze colour of your skin and illuminates the small areas of white - strange!)

Ko Phi-phi

(I've added some photos to some of the previous entries below, so have a look)

After a night in Railay we headed out early on the launch boat heading for Ko Phi Phi - a short scenic trip later we were checking into a resort called Andaman Beach resort, right on the beach and it also had a pool, and was at a nice quiet end of the beach...Miranda went for a swim then we decided to explore. This mean't more beaches and more food! All good.


We had dinner right on the beach watching a fire show. Very relaxing, although so relaxing that Carl stupidly wasn't watching his food at all times. This gave one of the many stray kittens/cats the opportunity to come up and steal his chicken right off the plate. That cat is now on the menu! Just kidding ....... ok you animal lovers - the cats fine.......... it was too quick for me to catch it!!

Krabi & Railay Beach

We sadly left Chiang Mai and flew via Bankok to Krabi - which with all the airline competition there is now, flights were seriously cheap and so easy. We stayed the night in Krabi (great real thin crust italian pizza for dinner) and then decided to go to Railay beach for the night before going on to Ko Phi Phi. What a great decision....Railay was beautiful. We arrived by Long-tail boat to the east side of Railay (often called Sunrise beach) and checked in to our resort - low season prices meant we could afford to stay here - a little nicer than the guest house digs we've been in - plus it had a nice pool! So the first thing Miranda did was have a swim in the pool, then we both explored the island. Firstly to Phra Nang beach where we spent a few hours relaxing then over to the west side of the beach (often called Sunset beach), for more swimming, a beer and then Carl saw a volleyball net going up and had a game with some tourists and some locals - good times!

Chiang Mai - Cooking, Monk Chat, Day tour

We both did a one day Thai cooking course which was great. We were the only ones on the course that day so we got the instructor to ourselves ...... some would say we (Carl) needed it! It included a market tour which was great to check out the local fruit. Really tasty. We ended up cooking Pad Thai, Tom Yum Soup, Savoury chicken salad, (making) green curry paste, Chicken green curry and water chestnuts with coconut milk. And yes, we ate it all. Suffice to say there was no need for dinner that night.

This is just before getting stuck into our first dish - Pad Thai.

(I know, nice headgear aye!)

After the cooking course we went to this thing called 'Monk chat'. This is where tourists are invited to go to a local monastory and talk with monks about anything. The idea is so that the monks can practice their english and that tourists can ask them questions about how they live or buddhism or whatever. We even overheard a monk asking an American man, "Do Americans have sex all the time like in the movies?". The monk we had spoke to was from Cambodia and 26 years old. Miranda had to make sure that she did not touch any of the monks too. It was a really interesting hour and a half.

The next day we went on a day tour. First up was riding an elephant which was a bit of a work out to stay on when we were going downhill, good fun though. We then went on a walk/trek for about an hour to a waterfall. Some of the so called bridges that we walked over were very far from that. They were literally a single plank so our balance had to be good. A swim at the waterfall was dam good after walking in mid-30 degree heat. The afternoon entailed whitewater rafting and bamboo rafting. Both were great!

Chiang Mai - Day 2

We started day 2 with a huge sleep in. I think we both needed it. We had a late breakfast, changed Guest houses (Golden fern guest house was a bit dirty) to 'Safe House Court', which was similar but cleaner. We then hired bikes and did the 'Tour de Chiang Mai'. We decided to mission out to a temple, Wiang Kum Kam, which was a great bike ride although hair-raising at times with the traffic and a few random dogs (there are a lot of dogs just roaming around the place) who like to bark at tourists on bikes!




After the bike ride we went to the Sunday market which was huge. It has lots of local handicrafts and a great variety of food to choose from. The meal of choice for the night was a large fried rice ball that is broken up and mixed with pork, basil, chilli, lime and some other 'special' ingredients that I can't remember. All for a dollar! Dessert was in the form of a banana roti and fresh watermelon. All good.

Chiang Mai - Day 1

Chiang mai is gorgeous, and a lot smaller than Bangkok, more chilled out and relaxed. I think we've got into the swing of being on holiday as we're sleeping in and not feeling too guilty if we don't use up every second seeing the 'sights'.

We got in late afternoon and when we worked out where we should go , it was 5:30pm already! Night Bazaar time! The night bazaar is Chiang Mai's biggest tourist attraction...streets lined with stalls of t-shirts, shoes, thai silk scarves, banana roti's, pad thai sellers, sunglasses, jeans, and more of the same stall after stall after stall. It's been quite fun bargaining with the stall keepers, and wandering around soaking up the atmosphere. Bought a few little things but sadly, a pack can only carry so much.

Walking back from the night bazaar we stumbled across a whole heaps of bars surrounding a boxing ring. They were all set up so you can sit down and have a drink whilst watching a bit of kick boxing. You could tell that it was staged but there were a few good hits to keep us (Carl) interested. As for the 'lady boys' that did a bit of a caberet show inbetween bouts, they still need to work on their show!

Pictures:
- Miranda enjoying her banana pancakes!

- Thai dancing a the Night Bazaar

- Thai boxing after night bazaar

Bangkok.....hot & crazy!

What more can we say - the first impresssion...how to get away from that heat! But now we're coping and getting used to it. Even now coming out of an air con shop or building you walk into this wall of heat - we're also covered in a layer of stickiness! mmm nice...!

We have spent a few days wandering around various Bangkok sights - The Royal palace (that's where the picture is taken), Wat's (temples), looking at lots of budda's, checking out the millions of markets, trying our bargaining skills with the stall keepers and navigating our way through thai food. Actually we haven't been too adventurous on the food front just yet, we are still testing the waters... and parts of our bodies! Lots of red & green currys, pad thai's, noodles and ice coffees! Oh and delicious Banana pancakes (Miranda's fave).

On Friday we did a day trip on the train (30 baht for both of us 1 way $1.20 NZD!) to Ayuthaya - a world heritage area with old ruins and temples, also Tuktuks everywhere vying for our business. We initially chose to walk from ruin to ruin, until the heat and our feet got the better of us...so we got to experience our first tuktuk ride - a crazy one at that!

Saturday we flew to Chiang Mai....see next post for that.

Photos:
- Temple at royal palace
- 'Reclining Buddha' at the royal palace, Miranda had to cover her shoulders
- At Ayuthaya, ruins with Carl & Miranda
- At Ayuthaya - more ruins, with a school field trip (kids in pink school uniform) there at the same time